A Duck Dynasty Christmas

There was a time when religious freedom meant tolerance and living your life how you want. Today, however, it means open legitimization of whatever the Bible condemns and condemnation of any public statement of Christian conviction.

Phil Robertson, star of A&E hit reality show Duck Dynasty, has been suspended from the show because of “anti-gay” remarks he made in an interview with GQ Magazine.

But, as far as I read the interview with Robertson, he wasn’t responding to a question about homosexuality. He was responding to a question about sin.

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When asked what he considered sinful, he mentioned homosexuality, bestiality, and promiscuity. Then he quoted from Corinthians that “…the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers. …Won’t inherit the Kingdom of God.”

We must ask why A&E was bothered that Robertson condemned homosexuality, but not everything else? Is it okay that he thinks bestiality, greed, promiscuity, drunkenness, slander, and swindling is wrong?

Is A&E’s problem that there are still Americans who believe there is something called sin? Or is their problem that Robertson includes homosexuality among those behaviors that are considered sinful?

Really, we should understand A&E’s dismissal of Robertson for what it is – the latest episode of left wing tyranny in America, aimed to undermine the legitimacy of religion and Christianity and to render the speech and religious freedom protections of the first amendment meaningless.

Here’s how my Webster’s dictionary defines sin: “The breaking of religious law or a moral principle, especially through a willful act.”

An individual speaking on behalf of homosexual activist organization GLAAD said he was “shocked” that Robertson “compared homosexuality to bestiality.”

But Robertson did not “compare” them. He simply noted behaviors that the Bible says are sinful.

It happens that the prohibition on bestiality appears in the Book of Leviticus in the verse directly following the verse prohibiting homosexual behavior.

Understanding Robertson is not hard. He is a Christian man who accepts the prohibitions which the Bible calls sin.

Understanding this gay spokesperson is a bigger challenge. He wants us to reject one Biblical prohibition – homosexuality – while accepting the Biblical prohibition on bestiality. Why?

If homosexuality is okay, why isn’t bestiality? Surely there are some who like it and would like their behavior legitimized. Why not?

So, again, we should be clear that the real attack is on Christians who take the Bible seriously. The real agenda is the de-legitimization of religion and casting our sense of right and wrong into the business of politics.

It’s pretty astonishing what is viewed as normal and acceptable today as part of the alleged openness of our society.

President Clinton, a very popular former president, who commands hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking appearances, educated a whole generation of young Americans about oral sex, when it became public knowledge what he was doing with a young intern in the Oval Office of the President of the United States.

Just recently, our current president became the first sitting American president to address the annual meeting in Washington, D.C. of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider and concluded his remarks saying “God bless you.”

Movies and television are awash with gratuitous violence, promiscuity, and nudity. And homosexuality is now regularly depicted as normal and as acceptable as Apple Pie.

Everything is open and acceptable in America today – except, apparently, being a believing Christian.

There was a time when religious freedom meant tolerance and living your life how you want.

Today religious freedom means open legitimization of whatever the Bible condemns and condemnation of any public statement of Christian conviction.

Maybe A&E is sending Phil Robertson out to pasture at Christmas time to deliver a message to the tens of millions of America’s believing Christians that it’s time to wake up, as our freedom disappears over the horizon.

Star Parker (parker@urbancure.org) is an author and president of CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education.

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